Caroline Skinner Has Quit!

Recent events have shown that older males sometimes have difficulties in working with their younger, more attractive female colleagues. I wonder if anyone has any pictorial evidence showing that men and women of different ages can get along amicably?

"It has recently come to my attention that a number of bloggers have been banned from posting for saying unacceptable things. It has more recently come to my attention that they were in fact entirely right. We apologise for this error."
Emmanuel Strobes, pp, Lord Gnome, GalleyBase moderator.

The moderation of GallifreyBase is one of the most hilarious things I've seen. Talk about people who take themselves so incredibly serious.

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It's not just the mods, but also half of the posters there. God, to think Trekkies get a bad rep for moaning and being too serious. I've never encountered such a wound up bunch of arrogant and snooty fanboys in my life.

According to people who have seen the new DWM, the issue that caused such a tizzy yesterday with its leak of the John Hurt/David Tennant/Billie Piper news, while Faith Penhale's new role is mentioned, there's no mention that Skinner has departed (which would explain why Penhale has a new role with the production).

if any of that is true - is hurt playing an alternative version of nine that didn't regeneration to allow the story to be largely carried out as planned - I guess we will all be looking out for the sonic soapbox?

Gallifrey Base is deleting posts discussing this. That doesn't actually mean there's any truth to this or that the BBC is asking them to. This violates their Code of Conduct as it would lead to a discussion of the private lives of private individuals.

Much of this has been rumored before. The one that wasn't is the one that I find most intriguing -- that there was a falling out between Moffat and Smith.

The trouble is a lot of it seems contradictory. Moffat resents the fact that RTD had more sway then him, yet apparently he's so all powerful the BBC can't shift him?

And Eccleston procrastinated so much and pulled out at the last minute that they had to get John Hurt in? Does anyone seriously imagine you just call up John Hurt on the spur of the moment and offer him a job?

If any of this is true though I, as always, blame the BBC, though somehow I doubt they'd risk Who careening down a mountain just to keep three episodes of Sherlock a year. Moffat might take his bat and ball and go home but only with Sherlock, Who isn't his.

The ones that I'm skeptical on -- or rather, that I think are true but don't mean what Whistleblower seems to think they mean -- are the last two points, on big name writers and their scripts being dumped.

Doctor Who is a series that works with freelancers. Moffat writes five or six scripts out of 13 each season. That leaves seven or eight scripts for freelancers to write. Moffat isn't going to commission exactly seven or eight scripts to fill his needs because then he'll be left short when a writer can't deliver. No, he'll commission nine or ten scripts from freelancers each year (after taking pitches for double that) so that he's not left short. And then those extra scripts may be in the mix for the following season, as Neil Gaiman's "The Doctor's Wife" was (commissioned for series five, produced for series six).

So it's not at all unreasonable for Moffat to have commissioned scripts that haven't been made. And yes, spread across three seasons, that could total to eight completed scripts by now.

Now, there is a dark flipside to this.

Moffat has commissioned completed scripts when he himself has been unable to finish his own. Had Moffat's storytelling not been so arc heavy and his scripts the keystones/backbones of his seasons, those commissioned scripts would, in any other production, have been slotted in to replace what Moffat was unable to deliver himself.

Yeah, I seriously doubt the Smith/Moffat falling out story. From everything I've ever seen, Smith seems to absolutely adore Steven Moffat, and considers every script he writes the most "brilliant" thing ever.

And I just don't see Moffat being that petty about the Eccleston situation either. He probably knew from the start that Ecceston's involvement would be a long shot, so why get all petulant about it when he finally said "no"?